“Frackademia” is usually thought of as “studies” conducted by university-based “frackademic” researchers and funded by Big Oil, the old “Tobacco Playbook” in action. But UT-Knoxville has taken the game to a whole new level, leasing off land it owns so that it can study “best practices” for fracking in the Volunteer State.

“It would create a rare, controlled environment in which experts could study the environmental impact of the controversial drilling technique, while also generating revenue to finance research,” explained aNew York Times article on the proposal.

“If Tennessee is going to be a leader in the knowledge economy of the 21st century, it must have a great flagship university,” Jim Haslam said in a press release at the time. “We cannot go from good to great without increasing fundraising, and my hope would be that this gift would put the spotlight on philanthropy and the University of Tennessee’s tremendous potential to become a great university.”

The Haslam family is set to cash in on the arrangement, coinciding - perhaps not coincidentially - with ongoing UT System budget cuts. After all, the cuts doled out by Haslam serve as the rationale for the necessity of new revenue streams like fracking on UT-Knoxville's portion of the Cumberland Forest. A business opportunity, if you will.

Given the Haslam family's industry connections, the statement is unsurprising. In addition to the family ties, the emails also show one of the key behind-the-scenes pushers of fracking on UT-Knoxville's Cumberland Forest land was Bryan Kaegl.

Kaegl is a high-level Tennessee GOP campaign consultant who worked on mass mailings for Bill Haslam's 2010 gubernatorial campaign. According to Persuasian Partners, one of his numerous gigs, that mass malling spree ”included eleven unique mail pieces that totaled 2,687,748 pieces and 4 phases of robocalls for a total of 504,311 contacts.”

He posited that it's crucial for industry to “seek out academic studies and champion with universities - because that again provides tremendous credibility to the overall process.”

What's different about UT-Knoxville, though - laying bare the veneer of “credibility” - is the Haslam family ties to the University, the executive chamber, the U.S Senate, and the industry itself. In other words, it's the “frackademia playbook” with a twist.

Previous Comments

This is a perfect example proving the games won. Industry, government, academia, media, NGOs can declare victory over traditional environmental protection methods.

Not only will O&G use government land, they'll also get cheap labor. At a deep discount, O&G will pickup the salary for an associate professor, a post doc or two, a slew of grad students, and 60 percent mark up for administration. However, O&G gets full control of the research process: from statement through conclusions. Eventually, they can pull in under grads as driller helper interns on full-scale production, under the guise of “pilot study.” Industry funded research is done all the time and very successfully. But this falls under production not basic research. Most awful is using “environmental studies” as a marketing tool for this minerals grab.

I have no problem with industry funded research, at all. I have a problem with the topic of the post (which is not climate science or whatever your analogy was). This is using academia as a front: for a land grab and public relations cover. Research on full scale implementation of systems be it drilling or whatnot is not research - its operations. This effort by UT is full-scale production with environmental research and whatnot used for sales and marketing and public relations - mostly on the taxpayers dime.

The key question to ask is this: should hydrogeology and environmental engineering grad students at UT discover that fracking does truly impact groundwater - would fracking stop after one, two or 500 wells drilled? UT's petroleum engineering or similar department will be running the show (with consortium management guidance of course) - throwing a bone or two to the environmental science and engineering departments to produce a couple of white papers and sales brochures.

Democracy is utterly dependent upon an electorate that is accurately informed. In promoting climate change denial (and often denying their responsibility for doing so) industry has done more than endanger the environment. It has undermined democracy.

There is a vast difference between putting forth a point of view, honestly held, and intentionally sowing the seeds of confusion. Free speech does not include the right to deceive. Deception is not a point of view. And the right to disagree does not include a right to intentionally subvert the public awareness.